SNOW!

It snowed today!
I love looking out at a snowy world-- everything looks so still and fresh and peaceful.
Snow always makes me think about this verse:

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow...?

Job 38 is an amazingly awesome chapter about God creating the world. There are so many neat little "word pictures" about God drawing a boundary for the sea, laying the foundation for the earth, holding snow and hail in storehouses, creating clouds and making them pour rain...

Sometimes I put God in such a small box. Sure, I know He's the Creator, and I try to be reverent and fearful of Him, but let's face it-- my mind just can't contain the Lord. And try as I might, it never will be able to. In so many ways I picture Him being like me, or I don't let my mind wander to His grandeur, His excellency, His perfection and out-of-this-world-ness.

Jesus said (in Mark 12:29-30)
The most important one [commandment]," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."

Now, I had heard that upteen million bazillion times since I was raised in church and in a Christian family, but recently one of my friends told me that she heard a speaker say that loving the Lord with all our minds means thinking about Him, dwelling on Him, and trying to think about things that are hard to think about (like how big and how awesome He is!)

So, it's a commandment that I think about God's storehouses of snow, and His ability to create weather for different parts of the world at different times. And how he holds the planets and stars in perfect balance, and makes sure earth isn't too close to the Sun. And how before the world was, He was just hovering over the waters. How there was water in the beginning. What it means that He's the Beginning and the End-- how can I understand eternity? How He knows the numbers of hairs on the heads of all the billions of people in the world... How He understands all our languages, and even knows the thoughts we don't speak. How He creates new life from two small, simple cells. That He created humans (Adam and Eve) to have relationships with Him. That He is perfect-- absolutely perfectly perfect. That He knows, even before we make a move, He knows it. How He made us with complex emotions and feelings and a desire for Him. How He can be big enough to be God, yet small enough to be my Savior...

I'm glad it snowed today. It gave me a lot to think about...